tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:/projects/1039509567/the-last-100-days-a-photo-essay-on-social-politics/postsKickstarter: The Last 100 Days: A Photo Essay on Social Politics2012-12-01T11:12:38-05:00tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3602532012-12-01T11:12:38-05:002012-12-01T11:15:02-05:0010 Days To Release!<p>With the invaluable help of Kim Moscaritolo, we booked the release party for The Last Hundred Days at the Stag's Head in NYC on Tuesday, December 11 at 7PM. You are all invited! Below is the flyer but first here's a link to the event details:</p><p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/306751256105239/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/events/306751256105239/</a> </p><p>Last night, around 5PM, I uploaded a manuscript to our print vendor, <a href="http://Blurb.com" target="_blank">Blurb.com</a>, and ordered 100 copies. Ultimately, the editorial and design process was more difficult and took longer than expected, despite the fact that we had far fewer days than expected. As with any project, time became compressed and it was all I could do to ensure the books would even arrive on time for the release. To wit, they arrive only the 10th. But we made it. </p><p>I brought on an Art Director, James Meade (<a href="http://www.jmeade.com" target="_blank">www.jmeade.com</a>), who I met in Ohio during his first stint organizing. After seeing his indefatigable and doughty nature at work on the campaign turf of Cleveland, I knew he had the fortitude to fully lay out a 60 page book with me in, well, what turned out to be just a couple of days. </p><p>Or, in James' words: "You mean to tell me we are going to lay out a 60 page book by Friday? That's preposterous. But we'll see that it's done." </p><p>The book is not perfect. I'd love to have taken another 2 weeks with it. It is hard to be satisfied with hard printed text, as opposed to text which you can always tweak and change. But that's why it's a 0th edition.
I hope to see you around the release party, and that we will keep in touch!</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3570882012-11-27T10:12:23-05:002012-11-27T10:14:00-05:00The release is on December 11<p>The previous update did not include the date unless you clicked on the Facebook link; it's December 11, 7PM at The Stag's Head
252 East 51st Street, New York, New York 10022. The end. See you there!</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3570812012-11-27T10:00:02-05:002012-11-27T10:11:00-05:00The Last Hundred Days Release Party<p>I am proud to announce to you guys especially... the release of The Last Hundred Days in hardcover! </p><p>Please join me to celebrate our achievements in activism; come out and help tell the story of why we do!
I am not that big of a deal but I will be personalizing copies of the book, and for those who have not pre-ordered, I will be retailing books along with photo prints depicting slices of life along the campaign trail.
</p><p>In terms of my career as a photographer and also as a person, this represents a major work for me, and I'd be honored to have you join me in introducing The Last Hundred Days to a (hopefully) grateful city.</p><p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/306751256105239/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/events/306751256105239/</a></p><p>Dec 11., 7PM at The Stag's Head | 252 East 51st Street, New York, New York 10022</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3432862012-11-05T22:58:15-05:002013-10-13T04:28:04-04:00The Last Day<div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/08VSh.jpg">
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</div><p>We descended on Cuyahoga County, Ohio, to canvass for the reelection of the President in a handful of charter buses, and it turns out that though we were over two hundred strong, filling four buses, we were a few among many. Cuyahoga contains Cleveland and its suburbs, and is arguably the most influential county in the entire United States. Jay Z and Bruce Springstein joined the President in another part of Ohio today, but that's not what this story is about.</p><p>In the picture above, a few friends, new and old, gathered in Cleveland's Little Italy to toast our efforts and recharge for tomorrow's final effort. I have chosen to end my story with friends in Ohio. We have taken part in an effort of breathtaking scale and complexity. We were part of an effort that spoke to nearly half a million Ohioans. Twice. Tomorrow, targeted voters who have not early-voted will receive as many as three contacts.</p><div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/y4JrV.jpg">
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</div><p>The President said to everyone who watched his final rally on TV just now</p><p>"Never underestimate the difference one voice can make. It makes a difference."</p><p>Tomorrow is not just about the President or his bid for re-election. Though the window of time presented in this book and the President's final campaign draw to a close tomorrow, the story I have been tracking is not so much that of the candidates but of all the people who have realized the importance of seizing every opportunity to give their values voice. The truth is that most of the subjects and settings in this book are not presidential politics. </p><p>And regardless of how national or local you wish to get in your politics, those opportunities do not end tomorrow: the story of how we use our victories and learn from our defeats, and where we go next, that actually begins tomorrow. Most of you who are involved with this project (and all of you who will ultimately grace its pages) are already joining me in this effort, and this book is my way of being but one of many to thank you for it.</p><p>For those of you who might not have seen first-hand what this book will show you, I hope it will serve as a convincing argument that you are missing out, and that your entrance to this kind of story could begin after you vote tomorrow.</p><p>There is just one more day. I hope you are all fired up and ready to go. </p><p> - Jon</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3401102012-11-01T08:51:07-04:002013-10-13T03:52:52-04:00The Last Five Days<p>A true October Surprise made landfall this Monday, and completely altered the final week of this election. Now that trains are partway back, I intend to make a tour of some of the affected areas downtown NYC. My own neighborhood met Sandy with a little defiance:</p><div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/zv96t.jpg">
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</div><p>While Hurricane Sandy will likely be remembered as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory" target="_blank">black swan</a> which entered this campaign at the 11th hour, the election itself will go on as planned on November 6. Even New York City intends to be prepared.</p><p>As such, I will be on a bus departing for Ohio tomorrow. I believe we are going to Cleveland. I am going to be sending out some surveys to you guys to help me scale up production of your rewards, so please look for those, and enjoy these last five days of the campaign!</p><p> - Jon</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3362052012-10-25T21:36:55-04:002012-10-25T22:00:05-04:00How I Tried (and failed) to Find Young Americans for Romney<p>Thanks to the sponsorship-in-kind of family and friends, I have been able to pull up stakes, leave Manhattan, and look for social politics outside of my native region, and our collective comfort zone.</p><p>I lay my head within striking distance of a half dozen of the most electorally decisive counties east of the Mississippi. Today, I woke up in central Virginia with a simple mission: I was going to use the same casual social media techniques by which I fell down the rabbit hole of NY Democratic organizing to try and catch up with Romney youth organizing in these presidential battlegrounds. The theory goes... even if their philosophy and policy emphasis are dramatically different, their attitude and style as American youth organizers should be similar enough that I could fit right in, tell them (truthfully) that I appear before them as a sort of political folklorist, trying to find stories on why people get involved with activism and politics, regardless of stripe. My assumption was that Young Republicans had no intrinsic reason to be less welcoming than Young Democrats, and that it would be no more difficult to find them and enter the mix, albeit as kind of a spy.</p><p>My first stop was at a "Victory Rally" featuring Rep. Paul Ryan, in Bristol, Virginia. I found out about the rally by going onto the Romney campaign website. I RSVP'd and received a ticket. However, when I arrived within 45 minutes of the scheduled start of the rally (pro tip: all political events reach peak crowd 45-70 minutes after the "start" time and this is when VIP's hit stages, typically), the local police had already sealed off the road. I circled around and tried to come at the site from three different directions, but alas, some kind of security dictate kept me, a ticketed attendee, from entering.</p><p>I actually pulled over and took a phone call about possibly having access this weekend to a rather highly placed individual in the Administration, within sight of the cops who kept me from Rep. Ryan's Victory Rally.</p><p>So I pressed on to Wake Forest U., in Winston-Salem, NC. At WFU, Senator Burr (R-NC) was supposedly attending a tailgate being hosted by the Young Americans for Romney (YAR). The Romney website and all forms of social media identified only the general office address of the whole campus in connection with this event. The campus office closed before my very eyes, before anyone available could furnish me with precise coordinates of the tailgate. I was pretty excited to meet and photograph another US Senator, and so I parked my car in a lot where you probably needed to pay for a parking sticker, and took a stroll around campus.</p><p>Nice campus.</p><p>My parents raised children who don't embarrass, and it's fair to say that today I experienced some for the first time in ages because there I was, in my thirties, stumbling around a college campus asking hapless students to show me to the Young Americans for Romney. Even though my intentions were in their way totally sincere, this was not the precise situation I had mentally prepared for. I was unable to ascertain the whereabouts of this organization, or its event. They had not posted up fliers. The details were not on the YAR Facebook page either. And I reached the point where getting back to my car before a campus cop busted me, and finishing my circuit back to Charlottesville, VA before it got too late became the issue.</p><p>Ultimately, I do not have very many days to devote to finding Republican organizers, and while I do not want my book to be about *partisan* politics, but rather *social* politics, this was important to me. These folks do not really hang in NYC, and so I made a point of pulling this trip together. However, I can tell you from personal experience going on safari in the Serengeti Valley in Kenya, you have to spend a LOT of late nights at a watering hole before you see a rhino. Or in this case, an elephant.</p><p>I am unclear on my itinerary for the next three days, it may or may not include more Virginia, a third stab at finding YAR and the Young Republicans in PA on my way back north, and a tour through New Hampshire, as originally planned. I am booking whatever I can, and while I am happy with how today turned out (in that I did take a photo I am 95% likely to put in the book), I am hoping that even if I continue to attempt the mission of socially integrating with Republican organizers, I will not spend any more of these crucial last days missing opportunities to cover events I definitely CAN get into, or at least find. :)</p><p> - Jon</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3330682012-10-21T15:28:42-04:002012-10-21T15:40:25-04:00Two Videos<p>I hope to do a few more quick updates while we wind up the election. Please note, I recently sent out a survey which you may have received already, depending on the reward you picked. These are incredibly helpful, and will help me get your rewards to you as soon as they are ready.</p><p>Here are two videos I thought you might be interested in.</p><p>The first is a new teaser for <b>The Last Hundred Days</b> featuring the original music of <a href="http://www.vourteque.com/" target="_blank">Vourteque</a>.</p><div class="template oembed" contenteditable="false" data-href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItDxnxtuejg&amp;feature=plcp">
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<p>The second is a bit more personal, but still should be relevant to you as patrons of my photography. Within hours of you guys pushing this project past its fundraising goal, IgniteNYC accepted my proposal to be one of their speakers at <a href="http://www.ignitenyc.org" target="_blank">IgniteNYC</a> 14, which occurred on Sep. 12. Here is the 5 minute talk I gave, at the New School:</p><div class="template oembed" contenteditable="false" data-href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMyYyPYDswo&amp;feature=youtu.be">
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<p>Any questions?</p><p>- Jon</p>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3323242012-10-19T20:30:42-04:002013-10-13T02:22:05-04:00The Last Eighteen DaysThis post is for backers only. Please visit <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1039509567/the-last-100-days-a-photo-essay-on-social-politics/posts/332324">Kickstarter.com</a> and log in to read.tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3288272012-10-15T12:21:48-04:002013-10-13T01:46:31-04:00The Final Days<p>Though this book has a very New York feel to it, I also intend to document politics at its finest in a handful of the most influential counties in 2012. I am using a pre-sale form on the book's new website to document commitments to purchase. There is no transaction, I am just collecting statements of interest.</p><p>Whether you want to buy an additional copy or you gave less as a sponsor than what would entitle you to the book, pre-sale copies are now available to you guys at $47 a pop. All you need to do is put your name on the list. Populating this list helps me forecast how much I can gear these last 20 days to fly-by-wire travel around the country. </p><p>You can help a great deal!</p><p><a href="http://thelasthundreddays.com" target="_blank">http://thelasthundreddays.com</a></p><p>Here is an exclusive picture of comedian and political activist Sarah Silverman (<a href="http://letmypeoplevote2012.com/" target="_blank">http://letmypeoplevote2012.com/</a>) getting rabbit-eared from offscreen by fellow comedian and political activist Lizz Winstead (<a href="http://www.ladypartsjustice.com/" target="_blank">http://www.ladypartsjustice.com/</a>).</p><div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/T4smu.jpg">
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</div>tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/3173162012-09-27T15:35:08-04:002013-10-12T23:58:02-04:00Coverage of the End Stop & Frisk Rally with Talib Kweli and Jasiri X<p>Here are three exclusive images from City Hall Park of the S27 NYPD Accountability &amp; Community Safety rally.</p><div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/AQO5B.jpg">
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</div><p>Talib Kweli, a legendary rapper, gives an interview to Capital New York's correspondent Azi Paybarah in the image below, after giving his speech and introducing Jasiri X to the crowd.</p><div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/pbpSx.jpg">
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</div><p>Jasiri X is making waves as a clear new hip hop voice for social justice. Here he grins for the camera alongside City Council member and NYC Public Advocate candidate Letitia "Tish" James. Over the left shoulder of Jasiri X is NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.</p><div class="template" data-href="http://i.imgur.com/aBPek.jpg">
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</div><p>And here is a video I shot this morning of Jasiri X performing his latest single "10 Frisk Commandments" at this event. </p><div class="template oembed" contenteditable="false" data-href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQErgdB7tiA">
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<p>For more information about this reckless NYPD policy, please visit <a href="http://changethenypd.org/" target="_blank">Communities United for Police Reform</a>, the chief organizers of this event. </p><p>Lobbying is a critical aspect of political engagement, and it is not always about shady dudes in trenchcoats handing over suitcases of cash. It often looks like this.</p><p> - JR</p>